News
2017
January
Wishing you all a Happy New Year!
The opening Music at The Limes concert for 2017, Songbirds and Gypsies will be on Sunday, 29th January at 4pm. Peter Cowdrey (piano) and Liz Cowdrey (violin) will perform music by Bartok, Cowdrey, Granados, Monti & Schmelzer and share some of the work they do at Planet Songbird, a UK based charitable initiative inspired by the wonderful world of birdsong.
What goes around comes around! We were extremely honoured to receive a donation of £72 from Klick: Leiden/Oxford, a collective of young artists from Oxford and Leiden. Klick received a grant from the trust in 2016 to help fund their art exhibition Blue Fades into the Invisible at OVADA Gallery, Oxford. The exhibition was also part of the 70th anniversary celebrations of the Oxford and Leiden twinned-cities partnership. The donation received was the proceeds of the exhibition which Klick wanted to give back to the trust.
This year is already looking as though it will be a busy one for the Exuberant Trust as work on the Music at the Limes programme for 2017 is almost complete and is promising a large number and varied range of concerts throughout the rest of the year... watch this space!
February
We are very grateful to Liz and Peter Cowdrey (violin, piano) who performed a wonderful programme of music, inspired by birdsong at The Limes on sunday, 29th January. A total of £300 was donated by the audience to the Trust.
On Sunday, 19th February at 6.30pm, William Leigh Knight (baritone) and John Collis (piano) will perform a recital of music at The Limes, which has been inspired by the Scottish poets Ossian, Burns and Scott. Their concert entitled Celtic Twilight, Celtic Dawn, features music by Britten, Loewe, Schubert, Schumann and Somervell.
March
With the lovely season of Spring upon us we look forward to a special Mothers' Day concert at The Limes on Sunday, 26th March at 3pm. Hannah Laurens - violin and Tom McCoy - piano will play sonatas by Mozart, Dvorak, Schumann & William Kes.
Huge thanks go to William Leigh Knight - baritone and John Collis - piano, for performing at the Limes in February. Their Scottish-inspired concert Celtic Twilight, Celtic Dawn provided a wonderful juxtaposition of Scottish folk and contemporary music set to the verses and prose of Scottish wordsmiths and poets. Thanks must also go to the large audience who were very generous and donated over £350, which will help fund further grants for young artists in Oxfordshire.
April
We would like to thank all those who kindly donated £75 to the Exuberant Trust at a special, April Fools Day playreading of George Bernard Shaw’s You Never Can Tell at The Limes, Standlake.
The Exuberant Trust has a wonderful fundraising opportunity this month due to the support of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, at their Maundy Thursday concert of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major and Requiem Mass in D minor on 13th April at the Sheldonion, Oxford. As part of their charity programme, they have given the Exuberant Trust a publicity page in the concert programme and have allowed us to collect donations at the end of the concert. Soloist Mark Simpson - clarinet, who will perform in the concerto is a former Exuberant Trust award-winner.
Clarinettist Mark Simpson with Exuberant Trustees, Susanna Graham-Jones, Susie Crow and Carolyn Gulliver (former trustee), after his performance of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra at the Sheldonian Theatre on 13th April 2017.
A collection was taken after the concert in aid of the Exuberant Trust and just over £400 was raised by the extremely generous audience.
Photo by Peter Street.
Our Music at The Limes concert series continues on 6pm, Sunday 23rd April with Songs for a Spring Evening. Sopranos Becky Ramsurn & Lisa Gifford Guy, with piano acc. by James Winkley, will perform a selection of arias, songs and duets by Purcell, Mozart, Gounod, Debussy & Britten.
May
The Exuberant Trustees are delighted to welcome Louisa Fuller (violin) and Charlotte Brennand (piano) to play in support of our charity with Summer Soirée at The Limes on Sunday, 21st May at 7pm. The concert will include works by Boulanger, Elgar, Massenet, Clara Schumann and Brahms Violin Sonata no. 1 in G major. Louisa and Charlotte are members of The Millbrook Ensemble.
We would like to thank performers Becky Ramsurn and Lisa Gifford Guy (sopranos) and also James Winkley (piano) for their concert at The Limes last month. The audience were treated to a delightful programme entitled, Songs for a Spring Evening and we are extremely grateful to all who donated nearly £200 to The Exuberant Trust.
June
Jonathan Katz and Sophie Cheng will perform at the next Music at The Limes concert on Sunday, 25th June at 7pm. Jonathan (piano) and Sophie (cello) will play music for piano and cello by Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Liszt & Martinu and solo piano by Beethoven & Bach.
Huge thanks go to performers Louisa Fuller and Charlotte Brennand (of The Millbrook Ensemble) who played a delightful programme for violin and piano at the Limes on Sunday, 21st May. We are also very grateful to our generous audience who donated a total of £465 (includes an online donation).
We are delighted to announce that Peter McMullin has joined the Committee as a Trustee of the Exuberant Trust. Peter read music at Lady Margaret Hall and since graduating, has been the Printed Music Specialist of Blackwell's Music Shop. Peter is also an accomplished musician and often works as a piano accompianist, in addition to playing saxophone and flute.
In recent years Peter has specialised in working with young people preparing for examinations or auditions as well as performing with a variety of groups and ensembles and has also had some experience as a conductor. No stranger to the Exuberant Trust, Peter has performed at several of the Music at The Limes concerts over the years.
July
Music at The Limes will host its first every Poetry performance this month at 5pm Sunday, 23rd July, when Euton Daley reads from his performance poetry book Politics of Love and will be joined by special guest Amantha Edmead.
Huge thanks go to performers Louisa Fuller and Charlotte Brennand (of The Millbrook Ensemble) who played a delightful programme for violin and piano at the Limes on Sunday, 21st May. We are also very grateful to our generous audience who donated a total of £465 (includes an online donation).
August
We have another first at the Limes this month with a preview performance of new play Sex Education, by Cressida Peever at 7pm, Thursday 17th August. Sex Education, with a cast of 7 undergraduates, is a comedy which highlights the serious inadequacies of the national sex education curriculum. There will be a post-performance discussion with the cast, who will be taking the play to the Edinburgh Fringe (venue 29) the following week. West Oxfordshire based Cressida Peever is just finishing her Creative Writing MSt at Oxford and is an Exuberant award-winner.
September
Our September concert features the young but talented Charlie Woodhouse, who will play cello, accompanied by pianist Peter McMullin at 7pm, Sunday 10th September. Charlie and Peter will perform music by Bach, Brahms, Elgar, Schubert and David Popper.
We would like to thank our generous performers and also supporters who donated £112 on Sunday, 23rd July, when Euton Daley and Amantha Edmead performed from Euton’s Poetry book The Politics of Love and £210 on Thursday, 17th August after the performance of Cressida Peever’s new play Sex Education.
October
Our Music at the Limes series continues at 6.30pm, Sunday 8th October when we welcome back previous Limes performer Eri Sako, who will play violin with piano accompianment by Elizabeth Kreager. The programme will include music by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Kreisler and Massenet.
November
As always, we extend our sincere thanks for all of the generous donations received at the last two concerts: £370 on Sunday 10th September with Charlie Whitehouse and Peter McMullin; and £375 on Sunday 8th October with Eri Sako and Elizabeth Kreager. We also received several online donations totalling £144. All of these donations will be directly redistributed via our grants for young creative, artists in Oxfordshire.
December
We have had an extremely busy year at The Limes, as there will have been a concert/event held for every month of 2017, except one! We are extremely grateful to Trustee Susanna Graham-Jones for all of her hard work in finding perfomers, organising and arranging publicity for all of these fundraising events, which form the primary financial source for the Exuberant Trust grant-making programme.
2017 has also been a little different, as we have had our first ever poetry and theatrical performances at The Limes, in addition to our usual musical concerts.
Perhaps it is then fitting that our last event of the year will be the first ever panel discussion held at The Limes. This will be at 3pm, Sunday 3rd December, when the topic of the Theraputic Uses of Music will be discussed by Music Therapists and practitioners Vicky Paterson, Andy Stevens and Steve Pratley. It is hoped that there will be a lively discussion about the scope of Music Therapy, following a presentation from each of the three speakers.